China’s Labor Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Law took effect on May 1, 2008. It says that labor disputes are to be resolved by “emphasizing mediation.” A worker may negotiate with the employer, or “ask the trade union or a third party” to join the talks.
A company may set up a labor dispute mediation committee of worker and management representatives. Its chair is a union member “or a person chosen by both sides.” Mediators must be “fair and upright” and “close to the people.”
A young butcher in Huaiyin insulted Han Xin in the market. “You are tall and like to carry a sword, but inside you are a coward.” In front of a crowd he said: “If you are not afraid to die, stab me. If you are, crawl between my legs.” Han Xin looked at him for a long time. Then he bent down and crawled between his legs. The whole market laughed at him as a coward.
Years later, as King of Chu, Han Xin sent for the young man and made him an officer. He told his generals: “This is a brave man. When he insulted me, could I not have killed him? Killing him would have brought me no name. So I endured it, and came to where I am.”
小不忍，则乱大谋 Lack of patience in small things ruins great plans. (Analects)
宰相肚里好撑船 A boat can be poled in a prime minister’s belly. A person of standing can tolerate a great deal. Also 宰相肚里能撑船.
忍让 To bear something and give way.
忍辱负重 To bear humiliation in order to carry a heavy task. From the Records of the Three Kingdoms.
礼让 To observe courtesy and yield. The Analects asks: “Can a state be governed by courtesy and yielding? What difficulty would there be?”
After his defeat by Wu, King Goujian of Yue returned to his state. “He toiled in body and burned in thought. He set a gall bladder by his seat. Sitting or lying down, he looked up at it, and when he ate or drank, he tasted it.” (Records of the Grand Historian)
The Records say nothing about sleeping on brushwood. The two first appear together as wo xin chang dan, sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall, in a piece by the Song writer Su Shi. The idiom describes driving oneself through hardship to grow strong, without forgetting a humiliation.
Zengzi said: “Each day I examine myself on three points. In planning for others, have I failed to give my all? With friends, have I failed to keep my word? What was passed on to me, have I failed to practice?” (Analects 1.4)
Commentators read zhong in the first question as giving all of oneself to another person’s task.
In the Analects, Confucius says: “In serving one’s father and mother, remonstrate gently. If they show that they will not follow the advice, remain respectful and do not oppose them. Work hard and do not complain.” (事父母几谏，见志不从，又敬不违，劳而不怨。)
The Handian dictionary defines 几谏 as “to remonstrate in a tactful, roundabout way.”
When Qin attacked Zhao, Qi would send troops only if the Empress Dowager of Zhao gave her youngest son, Lord Chang’an, as a hostage. She refused, and the ministers pressed her. She declared: “If anyone speaks again of making Lord Chang’an a hostage, this old woman will spit in his face.”
The old minister Chu Long came in slowly and spoke of his bad feet and of her appetite. He asked for a post in the palace guard for his own youngest son. Later he said: “Parents who love their children plan far ahead for them.” The empress dowager sent her son to Qi, and Qi sent its troops. (Strategies of the Warring States)
Under Article 60 of the Civil Servant Law, as revised in 2018, a civil servant who believes a superior’s decision or order is wrong may propose to the superior that it be corrected or withdrawn. If the superior does not change it, or demands immediate action, the civil servant must carry it out. The superior then bears the consequences.
A civil servant who carries out a clearly illegal decision or order is held responsible for it.
China’s 2019 Regulations on the Selection and Appointment of Party and Government Leading Cadres set out how leaders are chosen. Article 34 says that before a candidate is discussed and decided, the choice “shall be deliberated” (进行酝酿) among the leading members of the Party committee, the standing committee of the people’s congress, the government and the political consultative conference.
Only after that does the formal meeting vote, “on the basis of full discussion,” by voice, by show of hands or by secret ballot. The word 酝酿 originally means the fermentation of wine.
In 1985, Zhang Ruimin, head of the factory that later became Haier, found that 76 of the more than 400 refrigerators in the warehouse had quality defects. He ordered them smashed. He took up the hammer himself and struck the first blow, and the workers who had made the faulty units smashed the rest.
“If I allow these 76 refrigerators to be sold,” he told them, “it is the same as allowing you to produce 760 more like them tomorrow.” The hammer was later taken into the National Museum of China.